Milwaukee Rep's 'Clybourne Park' an electrifying production

The Milwaukee Rep's production of "Clybourne Park" spans two decades starting in 1959, when a black family first moves in to the neighborhood. Act 2 takes place in the same house in 2009 when gentrification begins to happen. Credit: Gary Porter

Because "Clybourne Park" is so good and because it explores issues that aren't going away, it's easy to agree with Mark Clements' prediction - made in his director's notes for the new Milwaukee Repertory Theater production - that Bruce Norris' play is built to last.

It's much harder to imagine watching the inevitable revival, 10 or 20 years from now, without hearkening back to the electrifying performance I saw Friday night, in which Clements' all-star cast gave "Clybourne" the treatment it deserves.

Set in the same ill-fated Chicago house featured in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," the first act of "Clybourne" takes place in 1959, as a black family prepares to move into an all-white neighborhood. Set in 2009, the second act is a photographic negative of the first, as a white couple prepares to move into what's become an all-black neighborhood.

The same seven actors play characters in both, and as they argue about race, real estate and gentrification, it becomes clear that little has changed in 50 years except the scenery, as designer Todd Edward Ivins' vintage 1959 house morphs into a dilapidated 2009 wreck (the changeover during intermission is not to be missed).

Painful as these arguments can be, Norris also has deliberately made them very funny, heightening and twisting his characters so that we can laugh through our pain - the way people do when they step back, take a breath and realize just how crazy they've somehow let themselves become.

Clements and his cast get it, resulting in pitch-perfect performances - just absurd enough to give us permission to laugh, while hewing close enough to who these characters really are to make them recognizable versions of ourselves.

You'll laugh a lot if you see this play. But you'll also never forget that you're gazing into a mirror.

Gerard Neugent, for example, could have played his two characters - both willing to push the envelope on race and both revealing deep-seated prejudice in the process - as cartoons. But Neugent, who has taken his prodigious talent to another level during the past few years, lets us see the fear and bewilderment that fuels his characters' anger. The outrageous things they say can make them sound like clowns. But in Neugent's hands, they also sound desperate and lost.

Jenny McKnight pulls off a similar feat as Bev, the first-act housewife who is struggling with a terrible personal tragedy. Much like Nora in "A Doll's House," McKnight's Bev can be comically flighty - until she suddenly isn't, as we see the mounting frustration of a lonely woman, who has never been taken seriously and is now crying out for help.

I could go on, describing the excellent work turned in by cast members Lee E. Ernst, Marti Gobel, Grant Goodman, James T. Alfred and Greta Wohlrabe. But don't take my word for it. You can - you absolutely should - go see them at work in this A-plus play.

IF YOU GO

E-mail Newsletter

Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.